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Fortress Unionism
Fortress Unionism
Decades after its passage, the Taft-Hartley Act still casts a shadow on labor. Unions have a future—but only if they accept some difficult realities.
Rich Yeselson
On the night of June 20, 1947, President Harry Truman gave a nationwide radio address about the most pressing domestic issue facing the country: the deepening conflict between management and organized labor. Truman’s address publicly explained his veto earlier that day of the Taft-Hartley Act. Taft-Hartley (known formally as the Labor-Management Relations Act) was named after its two Republican co-sponsors: Congressman Fred Hartley of New Jersey, and Robert Taft, the powerful senator from Ohio and possible 1948 presidential candidate. The law was the consummation of a decade-long effort by Republican politicians, aided by Southern Democrats, business executives, and conservative writers to limit the power of the increasingly aggressive labor movement. The bill easily passed both houses of Congress, as an almost unanimous phalanx of Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats crushed the opposition of liberal Northern Democrats and a couple of maverick Republicans. Truman had made little effort to impede it.
Truman generally supported unions. But he also hated the idea that strong unions could disrupt the American economy and defy his wishes. An enraged Truman had recently threatened striking railway workers with conscription. He despised John L. Lewis, the bellicose, eloquent, and supremely powerful leader of the United Mine Workers of America. As the President wrote in a 1949 letter, he “wouldn’t appoint John L. Lewis dogcatcher.”
Yet Truman and his key advisers like Clark Clifford realized that they would need labor to win what was expected to be a tough election campaign the next year. Thus, the President gave a powerful speech defending unions and attacking the bill. Truman told the nation that Taft-Hartley was “a shocking piece of legislation” that “is unfair to the working people of this country. It clearly abuses the right, which millions of our citizens now enjoy, to join together and bargain with their employers for fair wages and fair working conditions. Under no circumstances could I have signed this bill.”
Senator Robert Wagner, the chief sponsor of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), was ill at the time, but he vowed that he would risk his life to cast a vote to sustain the veto if needed. It was not. The Senate easily overrode Truman’s veto, by a vote of 68-25. The next day, The New York Times front page featured a banner headline of the law’s passage, a large picture of Taft and Hartley, and no less than six articles about labor issues and strikes. Five days later, Lloyd Taft, one of Robert Taft’s four sons, got married in Cincinnati. Union pickets surrounded the church. One of the placards held aloft, addressing the groom, read: “CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU. _________________ TO YOUR OLD MAN”—the blank line conveying labor’s graphic wishes for the elder Taft.
Decades after its passage, the Taft-Hartley Act still casts a shadow on labor. Unions have a future—but only if they accept some difficult realities.
Rich Yeselson
On the night of June 20, 1947, President Harry Truman gave a nationwide radio address about the most pressing domestic issue facing the country: the deepening conflict between management and organized labor. Truman’s address publicly explained his veto earlier that day of the Taft-Hartley Act. Taft-Hartley (known formally as the Labor-Management Relations Act) was named after its two Republican co-sponsors: Congressman Fred Hartley of New Jersey, and Robert Taft, the powerful senator from Ohio and possible 1948 presidential candidate. The law was the consummation of a decade-long effort by Republican politicians, aided by Southern Democrats, business executives, and conservative writers to limit the power of the increasingly aggressive labor movement. The bill easily passed both houses of Congress, as an almost unanimous phalanx of Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats crushed the opposition of liberal Northern Democrats and a couple of maverick Republicans. Truman had made little effort to impede it.
Truman generally supported unions. But he also hated the idea that strong unions could disrupt the American economy and defy his wishes. An enraged Truman had recently threatened striking railway workers with conscription. He despised John L. Lewis, the bellicose, eloquent, and supremely powerful leader of the United Mine Workers of America. As the President wrote in a 1949 letter, he “wouldn’t appoint John L. Lewis dogcatcher.”
Yet Truman and his key advisers like Clark Clifford realized that they would need labor to win what was expected to be a tough election campaign the next year. Thus, the President gave a powerful speech defending unions and attacking the bill. Truman told the nation that Taft-Hartley was “a shocking piece of legislation” that “is unfair to the working people of this country. It clearly abuses the right, which millions of our citizens now enjoy, to join together and bargain with their employers for fair wages and fair working conditions. Under no circumstances could I have signed this bill.”
Senator Robert Wagner, the chief sponsor of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), was ill at the time, but he vowed that he would risk his life to cast a vote to sustain the veto if needed. It was not. The Senate easily overrode Truman’s veto, by a vote of 68-25. The next day, The New York Times front page featured a banner headline of the law’s passage, a large picture of Taft and Hartley, and no less than six articles about labor issues and strikes. Five days later, Lloyd Taft, one of Robert Taft’s four sons, got married in Cincinnati. Union pickets surrounded the church. One of the placards held aloft, addressing the groom, read: “CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU. _________________ TO YOUR OLD MAN”—the blank line conveying labor’s graphic wishes for the elder Taft.
http://www.democracyjournal.org/29/fortress-unionism.php?page=all
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